When Steven Ballard was hired by Independence Television Co. in 2005, the local operating station was leaking money.

“Our annual EBITDA, the accounting term for a company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, was $500,000,” he said.

“Louisville is the country’s 48th largest local market. A top 50 TV station should have an EBITDA of about $3 million.”

Much worse, he said, “the accounting department was in disarray.”

Ballard said that there were issues with financial reports, payments, credit cards and accounts.

On top of that, he added, certain policies and procedures were not in place, and people were not following up on appropriate matters. He started by replacing people and implementing new policies and procedures.

“It took a while to get all the transactional activity straightened out, which included correcting several years of mishandled history.

But once that happened, the reporting fell into place,” he said.

“Now the department heads could start strategizing for the future without being distracted by the past.”

By 2008, EBITDA came in at more than $4.5 million.

It exceeded $6 million by 2010 and was at or above $6 million in 2011 and 2012 as well.

Over the last few years, Ballard’s responsibilities grew from being simply related to WDRB-TV and WMYO-TV in Louisville to serving as an officer and CFO for WAND-TV in Decatur, Ill., and KTRV-TV in Boise, Idaho, that are owned by Independence’s parent company, Block Communications Inc.

“My staff and I perform all of the accounting, finance and human resources services for these properties.”

Because of his accomplishments, Ballard is a finalist in the 2013 Business First CFO of the Year Awards in the medium private company category.

At almost all his stops, Ballard became involved in new operating systems that streamlined operations, from Lotus-1-2-3 in the 1980s to the expanded, sophisticated system he has introduced at Independence Television.

“When I was hired here, we had two file servers, and connectivity for the building consisted of a single T-1 connection with 1.5 megabytes,” he said.

“We have grown to over 18 file servers with 50 megabytes, and everything now is digital instead of tape.”

Q&A

You said company earnings will skyrocket in 2014. Why then?

“Because 2013 is a non-political year, (and) without those lucrative political ads that drive all our rates up, we’re budgeting for a 2.8 percent revenue increase. But we’re already chomping at the bit thinking about 2014, when Sen. (Mitch) McConnell’s seat (in the U.S. Senate) is up for grabs. We believe it will be a new station record.”

On Steven A. Ballard

What’s the take of Bill Lamb, president and general manager of Independence Television Co. Inc., on his CFO Steven A. Ballard? It’s simple: Ballard is a happy CFO.

“From my office, I can hear Steve laughing out loud at least five times every day,” said Lamb. “He has fun, which makes people comfortable. Now you rarely see panic throughout our operation. We don’t miss deadlines, and we don’t get things wrong.”

It wasn’t Ballard’s sense of humor that got Lamb’s attention, though. “We were having problems, and I told him so,” Lamb recalled.

“Steve knew little more about TV than how to turn the channel, but he was a problem-solver. “

Last year, Lamb said, the company produced a 29 percent profit margin, “which is huge for an independent TV company that has to buy so much programming. But Steve knows how to drive revenue as well as controlling costs.”